


Lab Rats Retold (working title)

by orphan_account



Series: Trace and Ballistics [4]
Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Again with terrible flirting, F/M, Gen, Or at least slight miscommunication, Socially Awkward Natalia Doesn't Get That Reference, Tags to be added, WIP, un-beta'd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-05 10:40:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5372333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Natalia would like to solve that case, actually, but keeps getting distracted.</p><p>Edit 2/9/16: On hiatus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mission: Ridiculous

**Author's Note:**

> ((Shamelessly uses a copy of the script I found online to keep everyone's line right.))  
> I own approximately nothing. Not even Natalia, given that she refuses to wait her turn on the publication lineup.

Natalia had only been part of the lab for three weeks when she got a mysterious text from David. He'd sent **Meet me in Grissom's office ASAP. Tell no one** " to Henry, Mandy, Archie and herself, and when she looked at him questioningly through the halls and windows separating their labs, he only smiled.

She entered Grissom's office, with the other three on her heels, to see David leaning over a display case holding a miniature of someone's home. She raised her eyebrows and leaned against the wall.

"And what is this, oh omnipotent leader?"

David smiled at her, and began to monologue in a slightly creepy voice. "Four crime scene miniatures. Four murder victims. And one diabolical killer with an obsessive streak who's still at large." He turned back to the other four lab techs, and sighed. "I don't know if you've noticed, but Grissom has been really distracted lately, and...it's these. They're keeping him up at night.”

He went to unlock the first miniature, while Archie, on Nat’s right, asked, “You know the combination?”

David looked at Archie in a way that implied that, why _wouldn't_ he know the combination? He is _Hodges_. “Of course I do. Grissom told me he needs some fresh eyes on the case, and that's why I've asked you all here. Obviously this could be seen as insulting to the CSIs who formerly worked the cases, so secrecy is of the utmost importance. Double-down low.”

To Natalia’s left, Mandy took off her shoe and held it near her ear. In a false English accent, she said, “Oh, James, it's Moneypenny, M needs you back at HQ.” Archie, Henry and Mandy laughed, while Natalia just raised an eyebrow. The reference wasn't _that_ funny.

Archie pointed out, “The shoe-phone thing was _Get Smart_ , though.”

“Oh, that's right.”

“99 was so hot,” Henry said wistfully.

Archie hummed in agreement, and David sighed. “Four people are dead, the killer’s still out there, and you're mocking?” He deadpanned.

“They're mocking you,” Natalia inserted helpfully. “To be honest, this is kinda unbelievable.”

“Ah. Well, are you in or out?”

Henry shifted his balance, nervously looking anywhere but Hodges or the miniatures. “I don't really know anything about these cases…”

“We’ll review.”

“I don't know... I've got a lot of work to do-”

David cut him off. “And by work, you mean IM’ing your Icelandic pen pal, who thinks you look like Warrick Brown, because that's the picture you posted.”

Henry looked at Archie, the lab’s best technology expert, as if for an explanation. “How-”

“I just know,” David interrupted impatiently. “Archie, in or out?”

Archie hesitated, but then he shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “What the hell. But I've got to leave early, I've got a surfing trip in Santa Barbara this weekend.”

David nodded. “Alright. Miss Mockery?” Mandy frowned, thinking. “Well, we can't leave the lab, we can't talk to suspects. What exactly does Grissom want us to do?”

Inwardly, Nat agreed. The entire situation was so unbelievable, Natalia wasn't exactly sure that she was in her right mind. David’s slowly growing grin really wasn't helping the discombobulating feeling in her stomach.

He gently lifted the lid off the first miniature, saying, “It's not always what you look at that matters; it's what you see.”

Comprehension lit up Henry’s face as he said, “That's Thoreau.”

“Is it?” David replied, almost blithely. “And where do you stand, Natalia?” And, _stars_ , David made her name sound almost _plaintive,_ like he _needed_ her to agree with him but tried not to show it in front of the others. She'd only been here a month and this man made her self-control slip. Approximately one half of her brain was swooning in submissive agreement, while the other wanted to gag at how _sappy_ and _illogical_ she was being right now. She really shouldn't go along so easily, but her logical mind also pointed out that if Grissom really had asked David to do this, it might be some sort of test. “David, do you have to ask? I'm so in,” Natalia said with a grin.

By now, all of them were clustered around the miniature, staring at the eerily accurate half-inch scale model of the crime scene. As David gingerly lifts the miniature out of its glass case, Archie asked, “Alright, professor, and you're point would be?”

“The answers lie in these.” David took the time to look each of them in the eyes, and proceeded to give possibly the most inspirational speech Natalia had ever heard. “We’re lab techs. We think differently than field guys. They deal with people, we deal with things. Maybe we can't find the killer, but I think we can find the thing that links all four murders. Think of this as an opportunity. We have one shift to show Grissom what we're made of. Tonight, we could be heroes.”

Nat caught Mandy’s eye in her peripheral vision, and motioned her head toward the box, the question obvious on her face.

The fingerprint tech sighed, and nodded. “All right, all right, I'm in.”

Natalia couldn't keep the grin off her face, and she could've sworn David's eyes glittered as he said, “It's time to think outside the box.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Insert CSI theme here.


	2. Chapter 2

Natalia really should've known that Operation: Miniature Killer wouldn't stay serious for very long. The crime had occurred almost six months before her employment, so she shut everyone out so that she could absorb the information from the case files, rather than David’s possibly-inaccurate summing-up of the events. Even if the only inaccuracy was David's own ego, Nat still liked the undisputed facts. She looked up briefly when David said something about tempting fate, but she quickly returned to the file as Henry said something about surf and sand.

A moment or two later, Henry stood up, an anxious expression that made Natalia fully emerge from the information she was ingesting. “Is he okay with us being in here?”

Natalia took 'he' to mean Grissom, and for a moment, she was worried too, at least until David shook his head. “He said he'd be in autopsy; he won't be back for hours.”

Nat shrugged and picked up the next file, handing off the Izzy Delancy one to Mandy. “They never solved Izzy’s murder, so then we move on to Penny.”

“Exactly. Penny was found headfirst through a broken window, presumably pushed,” David summarised.

“Suspects included her ex-junkie nephew who was living with her, and her drug-dealer neighbor, who was buying prescription meds from her,” Mandy read from over Nat’s shoulder. “Obvious motives: drugs and money.”

“Was there anything tying this case to Izzy Delancy?”asked Henry.

Natalia frowned at the case file in her hands. “Nothing at all, except for the mini.”

“The CSIs didn't even know it was a Miniature Case until this was anonymously hand-delivered to the crime scene the next day,” Archie pointed out.

Mandy asked, “Why wasn't it left at the body like the other one?”

David smirked. “Good question. Grissom and I really noodled over that one.”

Using her pen as a pointer, Nat carefully leaned over the miniature. “Does the answer have anything to do with this substance on the chair? It looks like dried glue.”

If it was possible to look both proud and disappointed at the same time, then that was the expression on David's face. He had obviously wanted to lead into this by emphasising both his intellect and Grissom’s awe-inspiring leadership skills, but Natalia readily pointing out the evidence with no prompting quickly sank that boat. Natalia didn't spare too much thought to his feelings; putting him in his place every once in a while wouldn't hurt him.

“Exactly, Natalia. He expected her to die in the chair. What from, you ask? Well, the killer knew that Penny was always stinko on Cherry Herring by coupon-clipping time, so-”

“So he laced her booze with nicotine, and that induced convulsions,” Henry added. Nat doubted he even looked at the file in her hands. Henry was good at spitting out theories that usually happened to be right, as long as the were entered around toxins.

“Good move, but not the best,” Nat muttered. “The nicotine could be written off as the smoking habit, but that volume would be off the charts. He should've known we'd notice it.” Next to her, David nodded but made no comment.

“But then when she went all twitchy and went through the window…” Archie trailed off, only for Mandy to finish, “The OCD killer had to make it match his mini, which is why he showed up late.”

Natalia grinned. This was complicated, and was going to be fun to solve. However, she was snapped out of her work mindset and into alertness. Footsteps were coming down the hall, slowing down as they approached the door. Henry had turned around to confirm, and he and Natalia whispered in unison, “Red dog barks at midnight.”

David, Archie and Mandy suddenly relaxed their posture and casually turned around to look at Wendy, who stood in the doorway. Now that Natalia thought about it, all of them _but_ Wendy had been invited. Apparently, she and Hodges were in the “off” side of their on/off quasi-relationship again.

Wendy’s eyes flicked to each of them one by one, as if trying to read their minds. “What are you guys doing in here?”

“Nothing,” David said innocently.

Natalia nodded, making sure that she didn't smile. Smiling would've made it obvious that she was pretending to be innocent, so it was best to act like she usually did. She held on to the file and snuck out of Grissom’s office, attempting to look nonchalant.

Closing the door of her own lab behind her, Natalia unlocked one of the drawers in her desk and lifted out a pistol. Typically, as a lab rat, people didn't expect Natalia to carry a firearm, but she was a ballistics tech. Such a suggestion didn't really apply to her. Besides, her old Colt .45 felt heavy in her hand, solid and cold and comforting. After a few moments, Natalia set it back in the drawer and locked it away.

Natalia's phone buzzed in her jacket pocket, and she could hear R2-D2’s clicks and whistles in her pocket, which meant it was Greg.

Greggo: I've got some shells from a 419 @ Tagliferri’s. You'll wanna expect some bullets from Doc when he's done with the body.

Nat: Sure thing, Greg. Those mobsters give you any trouble, call me.

Greggo: You're the new girl, I'm supposed to be offering you my help with unsavoury characters! On the other hand, one of them is giving me a stink eye, so I might take you up on that if it gets bad.

Nat: But I'm sure I'll have to race Nicky to the crime scene to save your neck. ;)

Greggo: Yeah, right. You're having delusions of grandeur again.

Natalia shook her head with an exasperated sigh. Boys, and their inability to talk about their feelings, were going to drive her crazy one day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hints of Standers mentioned in this one. I believe I shall continue in my pattern of being shameless. 
> 
> I'm not actually sure how long this'll be, but so far I'm estimating 8 to 10 chapters, so stay tuned.


End file.
